Bottom-up Change

A truism that guides my actions, but which I cannot verify with any degree of certainty is that change happens from the bottom up. When I involved myself in the urbanization and downtown revitalization of Albuquerque, I took note of two density strategies--the more organic Nob Hill "plant a thousand trees and see what happens" efforts, and the "plant a gigantic forest in rows" strategy (which involved a lot of planning and city money). Unsurprisingly, the organic effort yielded faster results. This example is one of but many anecdotes I can point to, but it's hardly scientific. My gut tells me that this is usually the story that plays out. The uncertainty in the bottom-up approach keeps most of the hucksters to take advantage of sure bets away, and maximizes the interest and goodwill of the parties who benefit from positive change. In my limited experience, even the success of the most planned efforts stems from the effort at the ground level. No grassroots, and you have very little chance of success. So, as I plan my return to Phoenix, I'm contemplating where to put my effort to magnify my own successes (and to course correct my failures). Rather than catalog all of my thoughts, I'll point you to this article that summarizes about 80% of my plans. Beyond this pretty comprehensive list, I'll write a later blog post about how I'm going to try to use my new position as a UX lab director to create a space for discovering what makes people feel more inspired to increase their sustainability efforts.